{"id":463098,"date":"2025-02-25T15:32:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T20:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=463098"},"modified":"2025-02-25T15:32:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T20:32:20","slug":"minnesota-wild-lose-another-vital-forward-to-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/25\/minnesota-wild-lose-another-vital-forward-to-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Wild Lose Another Vital Forward to Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/06\/nhl-predictions-february-6-carolina-hurricanes-vs-minnesota-wild\/\" target=\"_self\"> Minnesota Wild<\/a> have lost another key forward <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6158699\/2025\/02\/25\/joel-eriksson-ek-wild-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">due to a lower-body injury<\/a>. News emerged that veteran forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/eriksjo02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joel Eriksson Ek<\/a> is out injured on a week-to-week basis. This is after the Swede suffered an injury in practice on Monday.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at:\/\/did:plc:udj5sty2gbhfb4yisnkxd3aq\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3lizedx3rtc2j\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreibjsnphs2axoc6zoeiwmts6fahycwo4ktlpfdej7gsjgnt2pmklt4\">\n<p lang=\"en\">Updated Joel Eriksson Ek story, by @joesmithnhl.bsky.social and mewww.nytimes.com\/athletic\/615&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:udj5sty2gbhfb4yisnkxd3aq?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Russo (@russohockey.bsky.social)<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:udj5sty2gbhfb4yisnkxd3aq\/post\/3lizedx3rtc2j?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2025-02-25T17:13:36.905Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/static\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Minnesota Wild Forward Joel Eriksson Ek Out Week-to-Week with Injury<\/h2>\n<p>Eriksson Ek has only played for the Wild over his nine-year NHL career. The 28-year-old has nine goals and 15 assists for 34 points in 42 games this season. He has a Corsi for of 51.8 and a relative Corsi of 7.0.<\/p>\n<p>He has 131 goals and 163 assists for 294 points in 540 career games. Minnesota originally drafted him in the first round, 20th overall of the 2015 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>The Karlstad, Sweden native has represented his country at the international level. Eriksson Ek played for Sweden at the 2017 IIHF World Juniors, where the team placed fourth. However, he did win a gold medal at the senior level in the 2017 IIHF Worlds. The forward was also on the bronze medal-winning Swedish squad in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>He was also one of the better players on the Sweden roster at the most-recent Four Nations Face-Off tournament. Eriksson Ek tallied a goal and an assist for his home country.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means<\/h3>\n<p>This is another massive blow to the Wild&#8217;s lineup. Minnesota is already without superstar forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kapriki01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>, who may be out<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/23\/updated-timeline-on-kirill-kaprizov-injury\/\" target=\"_self\"> longer than expected<\/a> according to general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gueribi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bill Guerin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Wild are also without <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hartmry01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Hartman<\/a>, who is <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/02\/minnesota-wild-forward-suspended\/\" target=\"_self\">still serving a suspension<\/a>. Hartman&#8217;s ban still has another four games left before he can return back to the lineup. In order to carry an extra forward, the Wild did also waive veteran defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/dermotr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Travis Dermott<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Eriksson Ek was a strong defensive centre and his loss will be felt. Minnesota has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rossima01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marco Rossi<\/a>, Freddy Gaudreau, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/khusnma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marat Khusnutdinov<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/shorede01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Shore<\/a> as centre&#8217;s that are currently left on the team&#8217;s roster.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minnesota Wild have lost another key forward due to a lower-body injury. News emerged that veteran forward Joel Eriksson Ek is out injured on a week-to-week basis. This is after the Swede suffered an injury in practice on Monday. Updated Joel Eriksson Ek story, by @joesmithnhl.bsky.social and mewww.nytimes.com\/athletic\/615&#8230; &mdash; Michael Russo (@russohockey.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T17:13:36.905Z Minnesota [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":446535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[2392,2393,6248,3009],"class_list":["post-463098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wild","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-joel-eriksson-ek","tag-kirill-kaprizov","tag-minnesota-wild-news","tag-ryan-hartman"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463098"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463103,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463098\/revisions\/463103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}